Treaties Made in Blood
by LoboFanGirl
Summary: 2552. It's a year known as the year that the war ended. When the Human-Elite treatie happened, there were still some units fighting each other when they got the message. Now, they have to be friends? Whoa. WHAAA!
1. The Planet of Tribute

**I have always loved Halo, ever since I was a little kid and my brothers would play and not let me play with them. Event then I watched with fascination. Now, I am a big fan of the Halo universe. This is my first fic of Halo, and I have no beta, but I hope that you'll still read and enjoy!**

**_Treaties Made in Blood_**

Sangheili. That's what they call themselves. I just call them Elites. Or split-chin, or squid-head, or bastard, or eight-foot-tall-alien-freak-monster-thingy. Any of those will do. They do, however, have an honor system. That much I can tell from what I've observed through the scope of my SRS99C-S2 AMB rifle, otherwise known as my Baby, and even though they're genocidal psychotic war-obsessed freaks, I've seen them wait until a marine could get up off the ground before reengaging them when it would have only been too easy to kill them while they were down. Ha, think of that: an alien that's trying to kill your entire race waiting for you to get up and fight rather than shoot you in the back. A weird feeling, I know.

A flicker of movement. I adjusted my sniper rifle accordingly. Jackals. The elites had been sending several out a day to try and find me. Problem was, they thought they were looking for a marine in standard fatigues. I'm wearing a ghillie suit though, and it's grassy texture blended in with the sparse yellow grass. The disgusting birdlike creatures were looking for me. Nobody had to say it for it to be true. There were only about ten of us left. UNSC personnel, I mean. Lieutenant Haversonne, Sergeant Major DiNozzo, Corporal Church, Corporal Leer, PVC Charles, Private Emerson, and other three are civilians. I'm the sniper of the what's left of the platoon—I guess it's a squad now—and my name is Rachel St. Crow. Ridiculous name, I know, but it's what I got. Besides my rifle, it's almost all I got left.

I sighted in on one and took it out while the others were looking other directions so they wouldn't see the smoke trail. I had handloads that wouldn't leave a smoke trail, but they were hard to make and it took a while. This is where the fun started.

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><p>Hours later we were in a situation. Several people in the 'unit' had lost their sense of self-preservation, it seemed. I know that our job was to draw the covies into this tight neck in the canyon, but this, this was going a little far.<p>

"Come out little monkey, do not be afraid. I have a banana for you."

"Why don't you come in and get me instead of standing out there like the little girl you are?"

"It's close," the elite said to it's fellows.

"So's your Momma!" Leer shouted.

I drew a bead on the big blue elite and gently squeezed off a round. It was only our luck that the canyon echoed like nobody's business. The red elite took cover quickly.

"So much for honor. Hiding like a little girl!" Big Red yelled something intelligible in response and waved it's weapon about. I know. I could see it from my position and the itty-bitty rock it was behind didn't provide much cover for a thing of it's size.

"Now you've made him _angry!_" Leer again. The elite popped out from it's cover and soon plasma and lead was flying through the air. I squeezed another shot off and all hell broke loose as grenades went flying into the already volatile mix. The shields that the elites had made it necessary to get a headshot for a one shot one kill, but the grunts and jackals were another cup of tea altogether.

"Coward" the high-pitched voice of a grunt floated up to my position. It was quickly cut off in a spray of blue blood and methane.

"Take off your mask, you can't be that ugly!" Church had finally fallen to the taunt war that generally went on between to two sides.

On the other side of the canyon, I saw Sarge and the LT get their mortars finished setting up. I picked off a jackal that had seen them. They gave the signal-a red smoke shot from the grenade launcher that went off high in the air.

"Church, Leer, get out of there." I said into the COM as calmly as possible. Not that easy when there's rock vaporizing around you from plasma bolts and you could die any second.

"_Got it._" Church replied. Leer capped a grunt who went down in a spray of blue blood.

"By the nipple!" One grunt exclaimed. "Taste the grunty punishment" said another.

Church popped smoke. Under the hazy screen the two corporals did their best to get the hell out of there without being seen. I kept cover by firing at the aliens with the battle rifle I switched to when they started out.

"Corporal Crow, get out now." Sarge.

"Yes, sir." I made a break for it as well.

Moments later fire and brimstone rained down from the sky on the covies. None of them made it out of that canyon alive.

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><p>The command post was really just a glorified underground lab. I had my suspicions that it was an ONI lab from the mulitiple hidden tunnels going through this canyon that connected to it. The scientists that we met up with said that their job was to develop a bioweapon that would affect the Covenant but not humans. They wouldn't specify if it was a nerve gas, virus, or disease. Church was extremely skeptical as to whether or not they would succeed. The main room of the lab had a long table that, at first glance looked as if it were a long desk akin to one that would be used at a corporate board meeting. It actually had full holographic capabilities that could be used for schematics of all kinds, including that of planning guerilla style attacks against the Covenant.<p>

Private Emersone had just finished a supply count and was reporting. I was sitting in the corner of the room cleaning my sniper rifle and only tuned into the report at the last words.

"...We're running out of ammo, sir." Lieutenant Haversonne just nodded at Private Emerson. We all knew that our time here was numbered and counting down tick by tick.

"Why didn't they just glass the entire planet like they usually do?" Sarge wondered out loud.

At that time one of the civilian researchers came in on the one-sided conversation. Nicholls, if Crow remembered correctly. "There's a huge amount of helium-3 under the crust of this planet." The scientist mused out loud for a moment. "They might be mining that. According to our records, helium-3 is used to power some of the Covenant weapons and ships." She paused and continued, "It's under the crust of the planet, so the Covenant is probably planning to use the current cave systems that this lab is based on to make the mining easier."

Sarge didn't look to happy at that news. Everyone knew what he was thinking. With Earth under attack, no one was going to care about a group of seven marines and three civilians on a lost and mostly glassed world that was Covenant occupied. We were on our own.

"We're all gonna die." Whispered Private Emerson despairingly his spot.

I don't know why, but something snapped to inside me. I set my sniper rifle aside from where I had been cleaning it and stood. "Emerson, if we are gonna die, and I doubt we will, _I'm_ gonna go down swinging." I said in a half-way bitchy tone. I gave him a firm look, reminding him of his rank. "Don't start any of this mamby-pamby 'we're gonna die' crap because we don't have time for it. Go out fighting or lay down like a dog. Up to you. Just don't expect me to join you in laying down like a dog.

**If you recognized some of the lines, you did! I used game dialogue from the elites, grunts, and marines. How else to make it sound authentic? Haha, hope you liked it. Sadly the next chapter is still on the drawing board.**


	2. Chapter 2: New Discoveries

**Sup, peoples. Here's a slightly longer chapter than the last one. If parts of it seem sorta psychedelic, it's supposed to be. If it wasn't psychedelic enough, tell me, please. School has started back up and Junior year isn't going to be easy with almost all honors classes and several college courses interspersed inbetween. Because of this, updates will most likely be erratic and happen on weekends if at all. If patience is had, you will see this story fleshed out, and one day, all grown up. Haha, so enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Chapter 2: New Discoveries<strong>

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><p>"This is Lord Hood. The UNSC and the Elites, now known as the Covenant Separatists have formed a temporary alliance. All units are to join forces with our new allies immediately. I repeat, this is Lord Hood. The UNSC and the Elites, now..." The message repeated on a constant loop.<p>

After a long pause Andrews and Gayle, two of the civilian scientists conferred. "It's authentic, I'm afraid. The encryption and vocal patterns all check out. We're now allied with the aliens." Andrews announced in an unreadable tone.

Sarge stood and walked to the door. "Crow, you're with me. We're gonna do some scouting." I scrambled to get up and grab my gear bag as I went. "Scouting only," he added. I put back the larger bag and only brought the smaller that contained the scouting gear instead of my rifle and ammo.

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><p>The Covenant camp was in an uproar, alright. It looked like they had received a similar transmission as we had and were bout to turn to a civil war. Elites were arguing with each other left and right and I saw that the Grunts and Jackals were just sitting there as if they were waiting for a decision to come through. From what our intelligence said the Grunts and Jackals just followed orders, no matter how cowardly they were, and had no say whatsoever in their government system.<p>

I jumped a little when Sarge finally spoke from beside me. "Looks like they got the message too, from the looks of it." I opted with a 'yessir' and looked though the scope again. I noticed the brute corpses around the place and the destroyed equipment along with the plasma scouring on the hastily constructed buildings' sides. In fact, I couldn't spot a single Brute still alive.

A flash of gold caught my eye. The Zealot that had been giving us all this trouble had finally come out from cover. He cocked his head to the side for a moment and then seemed to look straight at us.

Dread and slightly morbid excitement washed over me. I could feel that something was wrong.

"Sarge," I whispered, and then louder when he didn't respond. "Sarge, we gotta get outta here. Somethings wrong." I shifted slightly and looked over at him.

Sarge was still focusing on the turbulent camp below us in rapt fascination, his hands moving over a notepad sketching out troop deployments and defensive placements. "Hold on, Corporal. No need to get antsy. I don't believe that they know we're here." He said.

Slightly pacified, I turned my attention back to the enemy—maybe friendly, I didn't know which to believe—camp and started softly calling out placements that were too far away for the Sarge to see without a higher powered scope. Ten minutes later the hair on the back of my neck started prickling. That feeling that one gets when their instincts tell them that someone, or something, is watching them. I relaxed and focused my senses to the area around me as best as I could, listening for anything that could possibly be an enemy.

Crap. Behind us. I could hear at least two Elites creeping up on my position, maybe more were with it but I didn't have enough experience to tell how many. The large aliens, though they were good at masking it, breathed quite loudly when compared to a human. A tell tale deep whooshing sound, a rustle in the underbrush, and the tiny sound of leaves crackling under enormous hooves—Now that I was listening for it I could tell that they were there.

"Sarge, at least two Elites creeping up on our six." I whispered just loud enough for him to hear me from barely six inches away.

"Roger," he said. "On three. One, two—"

The three wasn't said, there was no need. We rolled opposite directions and ducked for the nearest cover. Too late, I saw a ripple in the air next to me. I my M6D to bear. I wasn't fast enough. The ripple moved and I felt a massive four fingered hand enclose my own and violently wrench the weapon away, amazingly, without firing it.

Another invisible hand grabbed a hold of my shoulder and turned me. To the still-cloaked Elite, I was no more than a rag-doll a child would play with for all the resistance I gave. Held awkwardly against its body in the classic hostage position with a hand that didn't have enough digits encircling my neck completely and a plasma pistol pressed to my temple, I could see Sarge surrounded by three other Elites.

To my surprise and probably Sarge's as well, they didn't shoot us as expected. In fact, they did the last thing I would ever had thought would happen, short of dancing around with Grunts shaking maracas.

"Peace, human." Wow. They had insanely deep voices. Sarge didn't lower his weapon. "We intend no harm."

"Bullshit. I've seen your version of peace, I don't want anything to do with it, you murdering freaks."

The Elite holding me shifted more from anger than nervousness if I knew anything about the Split-Lips. A massive finger moved to rest on my chin. I took the opportunity and chomped.

The taste of iron, dirt, sweat, and something else that I don't know how to describe to you met my mouth. Needless to say, it was one of the most disgusting things I had _ever _tasted in my life. Big-and-Ugly behind me only recoiled slightly but his hold on me loosened enough for me to wriggle away. And wriggle I did. Anything would have a hard time holding on to a twisting and turning person with only one hand.

I managed a "Sarge, get outta here!" before I was clocked a good one over the head and everything blossomed in flowers of white pain before giving in to black.

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><p>Pink...Green...reD<strong>bl<strong>_**ue**__fuch_isiagre_eNPUr__**plew**_**hitE...**Blue...Green... reD**bl**_**ue**__fuch_isiagre_eNPUr__**plew**_**hitE**...

I floated in a rainbow of colors constantly shifting hue and intensity. I vaguely registered that I was becoming cold. Unbearably cold. It reached out with probing tendrils and drove the heat from my bones, penetrating my skin until I felt nothing but the cold. Around me the colors began to shift to blues and purples. Still, the cold probed around with freezing fingers, touching my head and chest, my hands, everything. It wouldn't leave. It couldn't leave me in peace. The only comfort I found was that it seemed that I was floating in something...jello-like. Something like water but thicker that allowed me to just float without sinking. I could hear the blood rushing through my veins in waves with a 'whoosh, whoosh, whoosh' and still I floated, unable to get away from the cold, unable to see anything but the shades of blue and purple that surrounded me.

"corporal." The cold washed over me, engulfing me in tidal waves. It seemed that whatever I was floating in no longer wanted me as it tossed and turned, churning around with me inside it, carrying me within it's arctic waters. "Corporal." Blues and purples were giving way to black and white but only barely. "_Corporal Crow._" That annoying incessant noise, it wouldn't go away. Black and white churned along with the freezing water, attempting to drown me with it's— "**CORPORAL CROW!**"

It broke. Suddenly I was no longer surrounded by freezing water, no longer floating in a freezing grip though to the very core of my being I still felt it. Now my bones felt as if they were chiseled out of ice while my skin felt as a flame.

A white color with khaki undertones hovered over me, a single blob of it surrounded by the still churning blacks, blues, purples, and whites. Involuntarily, a strangled cracked groan escaped my lips before the effort to see became too much and I fell into black once more.

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><p>Murmurs woke me. The murmurs that had been going on all around me while I lay unconscious and dreaming of strange things that I could barely remember, much less describe.<p>

I tried to sit up but my abs clenched at the effort, threatening to spasm out but I prevailed over the protesting muscles. An overwhelming dizziness drove my senses out of whack. I couldn't tell where I was, the purple walls around me offered no clues. The world tipped and I fell.

Just as I was about to hit the deck—both literally and metaphorically—a pair of hands caught me.

"Human, the patient has awakened." A bass rumbled. I both felt and heard the words; such was the deep timbre of the voice.

I was set back down in a laying position. I made out the face of Prof. Andrews, one of the civilians that was in the unit with us. The first thing she did was shine an annoying light into my eyes. Seriously, did they have to do that _every_ time something happened?

I voiced my protest. "Whydda have to do that every single—Holy fuck!" My hands jumped automatically to my waist but my trusty M6D was no longer there to shoot the two blue aliens standing behind Prof. Andrews.

In my opinion, the shock of seeing the two aliens did more to put my mind and body back to a functioning state than Prof. Andrews' annoying little light did.

"Corporal Crow, it's okay." She tried to reassure me. Tried being the operative word. "They're on our side."

"Like hell they are" I replied. I suddenly felt very weak, sapped like I had no energy. I kinda didn't. I lay back down on the...bed thingy. Collapsed was more like it.

The walls of the medical bay were purple and blue. Hence the colors in my psychedelic dream. For a med-bay of a cruiser, it was tiny. The size you would expect for a frigate, not an enormous cruiser. I was laying on some bed thing. It was more like one of those tables in a morgue but covered with this jello stuff that would let you sink down into it a bit.

"What...what happened?" I finally said after a few minutes. I still hadn't taken my watchful eyes off of the two elites in the room. Both were blue minors and neither looked like they enjoyed being in a medical bay with two humans, one a delirious patient and the other a doctor.

"You had a fever of 107." She said. "You almost died." Prof. Andrews looked away quickly and started fiddling with her clipboad.

I attempted to look at her sharply. "Professor, you know _exactly_ what I'm talking about." For my condition, I thought that I did a bang up job of sounding threatening. "Why are **they** in here?" I switched to Hungarian on that last question.

She responded in kind. "There was a Covenant civil war. The Elites sided with us. It seems that they didn't know how to approach us to discuss joining forces besides trying to force Sergeant DiNozzo to listen. That went south when one struck you on the head to try and knock you unconscious." She paused to gather herself. "We had to perform some impromptu surgery to ease the pressure in some in your skull. You should be fine now. The fever broke yesterday and you came close to waking up a few times. Take it easy for a day or so and you'll be as good as new." The Professor finished cheerily.

I could see the Elites behind her struggling to make sense of the Hungarian words. Good luck, bastards. They had translators built into their armor—we knew that much—just like we had translators built into our helmets. I was pretty sure that the only language that translated for them was English. Considering that the average human knows about five different languages, that was pretty easy to overcome.

"Sooo, we're allied with a bunch of murderous aliens." I summarized. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend, but what keeps them from turning on us?"

Andrews had no answer to that.

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><p><strong><em>Pretty trippy, huh? I'm gonna see what I can do as far as everyday life on a Covenant Seperatist ship. On that I'm going along the thought line of 'If it takes the UNSC weeks to get through slipspace sometimes and the Covenant travels at the same speed, what do the Covenant do when not in cryo-sleep?'<em>**

**_Anywho, hope you liked it!_**


	3. The Encounter

**Daaayyyuuuummm. I really haven't done much writing on this since school picked up. Sorry.**

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><p>I didn't really want to know how Prof. Andrews performed the neurosurgery without all the equipment a human med bay would provide. Even though the CCS Battlecruiser had around a thousand Elites on it, the medical bay they used had only three beds and was a quarter of the size of any UNSC CCS battlecruiser's med bay. These Elites did seem to be quite the masochists.<p>

My current predicament, however, was the ten-foot-tall-red-armored-alien-bastard blocking my way to the barracks the remaining humans were placed in. Erik, the Skandanavian smart AI that the scientists had kept us from knowing about was giving me directions through my HUD, helping me avoid most hostile squid-faced things. But, like I said, there were around a thousand Elites in this place-can't avoid them all. Sadly.

The red behomoth had his arms crossed. At least I think it's a guy, but I'm not about to go checking. Anyways, the corridor we were standing in was pretty narrow in the first place and factor in a giant alien literally twice my size, and you've got a situation that doesn't allow for easy passing of species. Kinda awkward.

"Can you let me pass?" I questioned.

He (it, I don't know) grunted. Might have huffed, but I think it grunted.

"You are no warrior," it said. "Your species is to small to be anything but weak."

"Hey, it's not like we go around picking fights. Just have a bunch of alien freaks out to kill us is all." I replied and almost immediatly regretted it.

The Elite's serpentine eyes narrowed. Hmm. Looks like they have sideways eyelids. Kinda creeped me out.

"You kill your enemies from a distance, where they have no opportunity to fight back. There is no honor in what you do." The Elite insisted.

I was kinda getting annoyed at the Elite. "That's kinda the point, split-jaw. Worked pretty good on that Prophet that came aground. A fifty cal through his head looked pretty nice to me."

Either it was the split-jaw comment or they were touchy about their prophets. Either way, the bastard outright growled and started toward me with murder in his eyes and a hand outstretched in my direction.

I could have eeped or something else embarassing, but my instincts kicked in and the standard augmentations allowed me to slip past him on his left. I might be smaller and weaker, but I'm alot more agile than a ten-foot tall alien in a cramped corridor. The alien snarled and turned to make another grab for me but I'd already slipped into another doorway by the time he could get there. The door slammed closed behind me, probably Erik's doing, and new directions popped up in my HUD. I started heading that direction.

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><p><strong>I know, short and teenie tiny, but oh well. I don't have a lot of time lately, but I'll try to keep this story going.<strong>


	4. New Orders

**Soooo, here's an update!**

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><p>"..."<p>

"Can you please stop that?"

"No."

"Crow, cut it out." I flicked my gaze away from Nicholls at the words of Sarge.

It didn't look like I was the only one more than a little butt-hurt over the scientists' deception. The fact that we had a frickin' smart AI with us just slipped their minds? I don't think so!

Church looked like he was ready to put a bullet through Nicholl's chest. Or ten.

Sarge was the only one taking the realization that we could have had an AI giving us live intel and hacking into the Covenant Battlenet to maybe help more people survive well, but then again he was the man leading us by example. It's not really like they could have told us because of the ONI protocols, but it still would have been nice.

Erik appeared next to Sarge in the form of a life size viking complete with horned helmet. Hmm. Seems that the Covenant have better holographic systems in their ships too.

The viking AI spoke first. "There is a delegation of around five Elites-Sangheili-approaching. They want to discuss how we will fit into their fighting forces. We have been relegated to cleaning up the remnants of the Brute forces."

Sarge just put his helmet on and the rest of us followed. I found myself in the corner of the room by my sniper rifle nary a minute later loading rounds into clips when the Elites entered.

The aliens' entrance wasn't that impressive. The doors just glowed a brighter purple and retracted to the sides. Those were some tall doors, now that I thought about it. Might be able to get a downsized Warthog through there. Or a Hunter. That's probably what they were so tall for.

The gold Zealot I spotted earlier in the week when I was sizing him up for a fifty cal. bullet to the head entered first followed by four red Majors. When he saw Sarge he flared his mandables in a weird creepy way that sent a shiver down my back. I'd seen that action before. Right before someone got impaled on a plasma sword.

Leer's channel flared to life on my radio. _"Anyone else wondering how they chew stuff up?"_ I was glad we had sealed and soundproofed helmets because I couldn't help a slight guffaw. Neither could several of the other guys. We hadn't thought about that either. Actually, how _did_ they chew stuff up? There was nothing on the bottom of their mouths, just some mandibles and a hole for a throat.

_"Quiet, Leer."_ Sarge growled before turning his attention back to the Elites. His back was stiff in a never back down type of way.

I finished loading a clip and slammed it into my rifle in a well practiced motion. Two of the Elites looked my way with the action. Another clip found it's way to my hand and I began loading that one as well.

"Greetings, human," the Zealot rumbled. He didn't sound too happy to be talking to us.

"I can't say the same for us," Sarge said shortly. "What do you require?" He asked, wanting to get this over with quickly. None of us wanted to be around the aliens for long.

"Peace," the Zealot growled somewhat viciously. "Your explosives specialist and sniper will be required for the next deployment against the Jiralhanae."

"_Brutes,"_ Eric helpfully supplied.

Church started at the words of the Zealot and opened up a channel. "_Sarge, is this right? We haven't received any new orders from the UNSC on what's going on._" He was panicked and I didn't blame him. I was too. I didn't know about him, but I could 'accidentaly' take out some aliens that I wasn't supposed to because orders never specifically stated that we couldn't. Technically, we had no orders to not fire on the split-chins.

A moment and Sarge turned to us. "You heard the-Zealot," he said. "Crow, Church, you both are going to join up with the Elite squads." He walked over and got in my face. "And no 'friendly-fire.' You are going to treat them as if they're fellow Marines. Got it?"

"Clear, Sarge."

"Good." He turned back to the bastards. "You've got yourself some specialists." Despite his words, none of us liked what was going on.


End file.
